“Wake up, Christy. We have to get out of here. We have a big day ahead of us.”
A very big day, though between all the sharing and...well,sharingthey’d done last night, he still hadn’t broken the really important news to her this morning.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” he encouraged, sweepingthe curtain of dark hair from her face. “We’ve got to get you back to your tower before the Tinklers get there.”
“What?” Christiana rolled to her back, her eyes tightly shut. “My mind is too heavy with the need for sleep. I canna...”
He jostled her shoulder as her words trailed off. “Up. Now. I know you’re exhausted, but we have to get out of here.”
“Out of here?” She focused on him through narrowly squinted eyes, blinking as her wits came to her. “We’re in the keep? Oh, fie, how did we let this happen?”
“I think we both have a pretty good idea of how it happened.” He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead as he rolled over her and hit the cold stone floor with his feet.
“What did you say about Tinklers?” She’d pushed up on one elbow, clutching the blanket to her breasts.
He spared a thought to forgetting everything in favor of returning to her bed, but good sense prevailed. It was his only choice if he wanted to make sure waking up with her in his arms was to be more than a onetime thing.
And that was exactly what he wanted.
“Hall and I made arrangements with them to get Bridget away from Tordenet. When they come for her, you’re going with them.”
“I’ve no seen that on any of Skuld’s paths.”
“Then Skuld needs to get herself some new paths,because this is the way we’re handling it. My mind’s made up. You’re leaving this place this very morning. With the Tinklers. It’ll be a twofer when they deliver Bridget back to Malcolm’s protection.”
“I dinna think what you plan is possible, Chase. That’s no the way of it.” She tipped her head to the side, reminding him of a teacher lecturing a disappointing student. “The Norns weave the tapestry of our lives. Skuld may well offer choices, but only those she’s already woven for us, no the ones we make up for ourselves.”
“Is that so?” he asked, pulling open the curtains on all sides of the bed to allow the morning’s light to reach her. He didn’t have time for the luxury of this debate. The purple haze peeking around the shutters had already lightened to a battleship gray. “Then that must be one crazy-ass tapestry your Norns are weaving, what with your Faerie friend popping me out of the twenty-first century to drop me here.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, obviously struggling with some internal debate.
“No,” she said at last. “It is what it is. We’ve none of us a way around it. Neither god nor Mortal is exempt from the work of the Norns.”
“Okay then, no problem. Since we’re neither god nor Mortal, but Faerie.” He reached for her hand and pulled her from the bed, not letting go until her feet were on the floor. “Let me ask you a question. Did you see this happening between us in any of your visions?”
“No,” she said quietly.
“Well, I saw it. From the moment I met you, I knew we would be together. It’smypath. Now quit arguing with me and get dressed. The way I see it, it’s probably best if we aren’t spotted coming out of the garden together. So you can go back the way we came, and I’ll go out the regular way, through the door.”
Confined spaces were not his preference. Not when they could be avoided.
“The garden’s no the place for me, either, this time of morning. I’ll use a different exit from the passageways. Through the kitchen’s storage rooms would likely be best, once the cooks have had time to finish collecting what they need to prepare for their day.”
“As long as you hurry. We don’t want you missing your ride. You be careful, okay?”
He grinned at her and started for the door, turning back after only a few steps to take her in his arms for a proper parting kiss. She molded to him, her lips every bit as wonderful this morning as they had been the night before.
At last he pulled away from her to say good-bye. The words that popped out of his mouth surprised even him.
“I love you.”
Leaving her standing there, the blanket all that separated him from those enticing curves, was harder than almost anything he’d done before.
“Won’t be long,” he promised himself under his breath as he stepped into the hallway.
He loved her. Not just her body or having sex with her; he actually lovedher. Where that knowledge had come from or when it had penetrated his thick head, he had no idea. But it was the absolute truth. He’d never been one to say a thing he didn’t mean, and to his core he knew that he’d never meant anything more than those words he’d just uttered.
He loved her. And thanks to the Faeries, he would get to spend the rest of his life with her.
